what is the reasonable (best?) Exception handling strategy?

[Duncan Booth]

Petr Jakes wrote:

> I am a little bit confused by all possibilities for exceptions handling
> in Python (probably because I am not skilled enough??) I did try to
> search trough this list and reading Python tutorial about Errors and
> Exceptions but didn't find some "general" answer about exception
> handling policy (strategy).

It depends on what you are actually able to do about the exception. If you 
can recover from it meaningfully then you may want to handle it near the 
place it is thrown. If all you can do is abort the entire program then you 
handle that at the outermost level of the program.

> 
> In the following example each row can IMHO raise an exception (if the
> Firebird service is not running for example, if the database is
> corrupted etc.).

If a service isn't running that sounds pretty fatal. Handle it at the outer 
levels of your code. If the database is corrupted that might also be 
terminal unless you include bad data (e.g. invalid email address) in that 
definition, in that case it may be something you can fix, ignore, or live 
with: it should be obvious in this case where in your code you need to do 
the fixup or ignoring.

> 
> Do I have to write "try/except" clause on each row?

The processing you perform on a row might raise an exception for which the 
correct action would be to simply continue with the next row. In that case 
handle the exception inside the 'processRow' function so the code which 
iterates over the rows never sees it. If it is a more serious problem which 
is going to stop you processing any further rows then you let it propogate.

> 
> Or to write try/except block (function) where to handle (on one place)
> all exceptions expected in the program code is a good idea?
> 
> Or do I have to write own "exception hook"?
> 
> What about unexpected exceptions? :(

Big errors, or unexpected errors you handle in one place usually by making 
sure a human is alerted to the problem.